Acknowledgements

We wish to extend thanks to Mary Cahill and her staff for giving us every possible form of assistance during our visit to the National Museum of Ireland. Thanks are also offered to David Bukach and Peter Woodward for generously providing us with the photographs used for our illustrations. Rock identifications for the items housed in Scottish museums and the British Museum were undertaken by Rob Ixer, Peter Webb and John Watson, within the Leverhulme project Ritual in Early Bronze Age grave goods, funded by The Leverhulme Trust and the University of Birmingham. We are grateful to John Hunter who provided valuable comments on the draft text.